Events

Softball Bats Come To Life But Pipers Drop Two To UW-LaCrosse

The young HU softball team found its hitting touch Saturday but then the gloves got in their way. Hamline matched Wis-Lacrosse with 10 hits in the second game of a doubleheader Saturday. But messy fielding got in the way and led indirectly to an 8-2 loss. In the opener, HU left eight runners on base in a 3-0 setback in a game played at the Augsburg Dome.

Bethany Hine continued her torrid start by going 5-for-8 on the day. Laura Randall had two hits in the first game and Lauren Clauston did the same in the nightcap.

In the first game, UWL scored a pair in the top of the first inning off Brianna Vela for a quick lead. Vela then settled down and allowed just one run on five hits the rest of the afternoon. The Pipers had some chances, leaving the bases loaded in the sixth and two more in the seventh. They nearly tied it in the last inning when Cecily Abbadessa drilled a shot far over the left field fence but a few feet foul. She then popped out to end the game.

In the nightcap, HU made four errors -- two of them in a costly fifth inning. Clouston's RBI single in the th9ird gave HU their first lead of the season but UWL (7-1) came back for three to take a 3-1 lead. In the 4th, Hine's bases loaded RBI single made it 3-2 but that was as close as HU would get. A pair of errors in the fifth led to three runs that put the game out of reach.

Hamline (0-4) returns to action March 15 when they open a West Coast swing with a doubleheader at Whittier (Calif.).